What a year of high-profile data breaches it has been! We have witnessed a lot of high-profile incidents this year, from SHEIN to Uber all the way to Revolut, 2022 was a hackers’ feast!

Based on Surfshark’s report, the third quarter of 2022 recorded the highest number of breached accounts of the year, acquiring a 69.2% increase from the previous quarter.

How Many Data Breaches Did We See in 2022?

Let’s recall how many breaches we have seen so far. 

Truth be told, many millions of accounts were breached. 

But there were at least 4,100 separate incidences made public which involve high-profile companies where hackers managed to steal millions to billions worth of data from consumers. 

Take a look at this data breach list in 2022:

December – LastPass 

Who would ever forget the LastPass data breach incident no one ever thought would happen?

In early December, password manager behemoth, LastPass, announced experiencing a malicious security intrusion happened sometime in August.

The company assured users that the hacker did not get any relevant personal data because of its zero-knowledge technology. 

November – AirAsia 

The budget airline conglomerate had been attacked by Daixin Team which managed to get the personal information of 5 million clients. 

October – SHEIN 

The controversial retail giant’s parent, Zoetop, paid $1.9 million in fines for mishandling the personal information of 39 million customers which led to a successful breach in 2018 

September – Revolut

The financial services company suffered from a cyberattack that successfully generated personal details, including limited payment card data, of its 50,000 customers

August – DoorDash 

DoorDash experienced a phishing attack that successfully collected employee and customer credentials

July – Uber

In July 2022, the ride-hailing platform finally admitted to covering up a high-profile data breach that took place in 2016.

The incident affected 57 million customers and Uber paid $100,000 in ransom money to solve the case

June – NelNet Servicing

A data breach involving student loan servicing platform, NelNet Servicing, leaked 2.5 million social security numbers to attackers

May – Costa Rican Government

A hacking incident on Costa Rica’s government systems generated highly-valuable citizen information.

The administration declared a state of emergency after 90% of the leaked data was posted on a now-defunct site

April – CashApp

CashApp’s parent company Block was a target of a data breach that affected more than 8 million customers’ personal information, including their brokerage account numbers

March – Meta

Meta fell victim to the alleged “Lapsus$” hackers which is the same group that pried on Samsung earlier.

Some of the users’ addresses, IPs, and phone number information were successfully taken

February – Nvidia

The same group that hacked into Samsung “Lapsus$” successfully generated Nvidia’s employee data, affecting 71,000 of its talent pool in the process

January – Crypto.com

The first high-profile breach in the crypto world this year, with $430 million worth of funds stolen.

Hackers successfully accessed credentials from nearly 500 accounts which led to a massive stealing incident

Data Breaches in 2022

According to the latest report, data breaches worldwide are continuously increasing. The average number of quarterly account breaches in 2022 reached 72.8 million.

Almost 109 million breached accounts worldwide were recorded in Q3 2022, representing a 44.5 million increase from the previous quarter.

Approximately 14 accounts were breached per second in Q3, up from 8 accounts in the last quarter. 

Let’s take a look at the number of breached accounts worldwide from 2020 to 2022, based on Surfshark’s report:

• There were about 108,888,899 breached accounts worldwide in Q3 2022
• There were about 64,364,633 breached accounts worldwide in Q2 2022
• There were about 952.8 million breached accounts worldwide from January to November 2021
• There were about 921.8 million breached accounts worldwide in 2020

Based on the Security Magazine and Cyber Security Hub’s data, around 4,145 publicly disclosed data breaches have exposed more than 22 billion records worldwide in 2022.

The average cost of data breaches reached $4.35 million.

Number of Breached Data Records

The total number of breached data records globally in 2022 is down compared to the two previous years.

However, data shows that in Q3 2022, more than 14 million data records were exposed worldwide, from less than 6 million the previous quarter.

Here are the numbers of breached data records globally from Q1 2020 to Q3 2022:

• In Q1 2020, 68.99 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q2 2020, 79.52 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q3 2020, 10.09 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q4 2020, 125.74 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q1 2021, 95.58 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q2 2021, 19.42 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q3 2021, 14.1 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q4 2021, 19.33 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q1 2022, 3.33 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q2 2022, 5.54 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches
• In Q3 2022, 14.78 million data records were exposed globally through data breaches

Number of Accounts Affected by Data Breaches

In 2021, there were approximately 5.9 billion accounts affected by data breaches worldwide.

Data reveals that the first quarter of the year was a successful quarter for hackers wherein over 4 billion accounts were affected.

Below are the numbers of online accounts affected by data breaches worldwide in 2021, based on the Atlas VPN report:

• About 4,035,704,917 accounts were affected by data breaches worldwide in Q1 2021
• About 1,420,088,073 accounts were affected by data breaches worldwide in Q2 2021
• About 357,134,079 accounts were affected by data breaches worldwide in Q3 2021
• About 93,389,699 accounts were affected by data breaches worldwide in Q4 2021

List of Data Breaches in 2022

Here is a list of some data breaches in 2022:

• Medibank, a health insurance provider in Australia, suffered a data breach initiated by an unauthorized attacker. A total of 9.7 million customers were affected
• The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) suffered a data breach initiated by the “Vice Society” hacking group. They leaked 500 GB of data and information with legal documents, identifying information, and financial reports, after LAUSD failed to give the demanded ransom payment
• Optus, a telecommunications company in Australia, suffered a data breach by an unnamed criminal group. They exposed the names, contact details, dates of birth, and identifying information of the company’s 9.7 million subscribers
• DoorDash, a food delivery, suffered a data breach by unidentified hackers. They accessed personal information including the names, addresses, contact details, partial payment card, and the card’s last four digits of DoorDash’s 4.9 million customers

Countries with the Most Number of Breached Users

The country that leads the most breached users worldwide as of Q3 2022 was Russia. It accounts for more than 22 million breached users.

This is followed by France and Indonesia, with more than 13 million breached users per country.

Here are the countries with the most number of breached users in Q3 2022:

• Russia had 22,287,234 total breached users in Q3 2022
• France had 13,822,756 total breached users in Q3 2022
• Indonesia had 13,260,289 total breached users in Q3 2022
• The United States had 8,488,788 total breached users in Q3 2022
• Spain had 3,929,944 total breached users in Q3 2022
• China had 3,475,716 total breached users in Q3 2022
• Brazil had 2,908,099 total breached users in Q3 2022
• Taiwan had 2,212,847 total breached users in Q3 2022
• Portugal had 1,432,424 total breached users in Q3 2022
• India had 1,424,175 total breached users in Q3 2022

Conclusion

Data breaches around the world are continuously rising. It can cause damage and loss in a blink of an eye.

Surfshark’s report shows that data breaches every year affect 1 out of 5 internet users.

Russia had the highest data breach count with over 22 million breached users in the third quarter of 2022, while France had the highest data breach density, with more than 200 leaked accounts for every 1,000 people.

Sources